Faculty

Dr. Gary Heba

Gary Heba joined the faculty of the Scientific & Technical Communication at BGSU in 1991. He earned his Ph.D. in Rhetoric & Composition from Purdue University in 1992. Since then, he has taught every communication core course both at the graduate level and the undergraduate level.

Gary is active in the Society for Technical Communication (STC). In the past, he served as the STC Multimedia Special Interest Group (SIG) Manager. He was the STC International Technical Video Competition Manager for 1997-1998. In 1999, he co-edited a special issue of Technical Communication on research. He regularly presents at STC's annual conferences. He served as a proposal reviewer for the Theory and Research Stem of the STC's 43rd Annual Conference.

Science Writing is one of Gary's areas of interest. He has also been involved in research on multimedia and visual rhetoric. His research resulted in a number of articles published in such journals as Intercom, Technical Communication, Computers and Composition, and IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

Dr. Bill Coggin

Bill Coggin (Ph.D.) came to BGSU in 1980. Since then he has taught almost every course in both the undergraduate and graduate programs, including technical writing, technical editing, and research for technical writers. Additionally, he has taught graduate courses in SGML and in writing for accountants. His current research interests focus primarily on international technical communication, both administering programs with a large international population and communicating with people in various cultures.

Bill was the founding advisor of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) BGSU Student Chapter. During the 1980s he also sat on the international STC Board of Directors as Director-sponsor for Region 4 (1986-89) and as Assistant to the President for Academic Affairs (1989-1990). In 1990, he became an STC Associate Fellow and became a Fellow in 1993. In 1997, he was awarded the Jay R. Gould Award for teaching and mentoring.

In 1996-97, Bill taught at Xi'an International Studies University (XISU) in Xi'an, Shaanxi, People's Republic of China, where he was selected as Model Teacher. In 1999, he was awarded an Adjunct Professorship with XISU, a position he still holds.

Bill also serves as Faculty Advisor for the BGSU Chinese Students and Scholars Association.

Dr. Jude Edminster

Jude Edminster began her teaching and research at BGSU in 2002. She earned the M.A. in Renaissance Literature from the University of South Florida in 1995 and the Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition with emphases on Cultural Studies theory, post-colonial theory, and computers and composition in 2002. Her research interests include the investigation of how information technologies with texts at their core are produced and received; how these text-based technologies accommodate both continuities and changes in genre; and how genre theory can assist compositionists and other information researchers in designing usable information forms, as activities and social networks supported by text move into electronic environments. She is particularly interested in the appropriate and effective integration of verbal and visual information, and studies in perception and cognition that necessarily contribute to this effective integration.

As a teacher of Technical Communication, Jude believes that in order for technical communication students to hone their ability to play multiple roles within changing organizational structures, Technical Communication teachers need to develop courses and activities that assist students in developing the rhetorical qualities of practical wisdom (phronesis) and wiliness (metis). Providing them with instruction in current organizational theory and principles for managing both people and information help them to cultivate practical wisdom; educating them about the process of innovation can assist them in developing wiliness.

Jude has a strong commitment to educating all writing students about technology's continuing effects on the practice of writing in a variety of new writing spaces.

Jennifer Brown

Jennifer Brown began teaching at BGSU in 2005. She had previously worked as a technical writer/trainer for a software and media technology company and also taught adjunct at Minnesota State University, Mankato (MSU). Jennifer has done consulting for a marketing company in Minneapolis, usability testing for the IT department at MSU and freelance editing.

Gretchen Sommerfeld

Gretchen Sommerfeld (B.S., M.A.) has been teaching at BGSU since 1995. She has taught ENG 111: Introductory Writing and ENG 112: Varieties of Writing, and currently teaches ENG 388: Introduction to Technical Writing.

A professional freelance technical writer and editor, Gretchen has over 10 years experience in business writing with strong ties to the construction industry, where she spent 9 years working as a commercial carpenter before returning to college to earn a degree in biology. Formally the assistant managing editor for the journal Personnel Psychology, Gretchen also telecommutes as part of the global production team for Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, working on journals such as Conservation Biology, Journal of Field Ornithology, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Journal of Applied Ceramics, Journal of Economics, Management and Strategy, and Journal of Communication.

Gretchen’s teaching philosophy is grounded in practical methods that demonstrate to students how to write accurately, effectively, and efficiently, along with using creativity to help solve the problems that arise in the working world. She still stays involved in field research and is currently raising monarch butterflies, keeping records on the population counts, changing habitats and resources, as well as the parasites and viruses that affect monarchs. And with living in an old farmhouse, she has yet to hang up her toolbelt.

ACCESSIBILITY

Bowling Green State University (BGSU) has built their website around the Standards of the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) 5 and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The website was built in compliance with the accessibility standards established by section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and detailed in section 1194.22 of the Code of Federal Regulations, “Web-based intranet and internet information and applications” (http://www.section508.gov/summary-section508-standards#web ).

BGSU utilizes many web masters across campus to maintain all of its web properties. Keeping the BGSU website in compliance with section 508 is a joint effort between Disability Services, Marketing and Communications and Information Technology Services. If any page is discovered to be inaccessible, please report it using the above link and we will ensure that the issue is addressed.